Sunday 25 November 1666

(Lord’s day). Up, and with Sir J. Minnes by coach to White Hall, and there coming late, I to rights to the chapel, where in my usual place I heard one of the King’s chaplains, one Mr. Floyd, preach. He was out two or three times in his prayer, and as many in his sermon, but yet he made a most excellent good sermon, of our duty to imitate the lives and practice of Christ and the saints departed, and did it very handsomely and excellent stile; but was a little overlarge in magnifying the graces of the nobility and prelates, that we have seen in our memorys in the world, whom God hath taken from us. At the end of the sermon an excellent anthem; but it was a pleasant thing, an idle companion in our pew, a prating, bold counsellor that hath been heretofore at the Navy Office, and noted for a great eater and drinker, not for quantity, but of the best, his name Tom Bales, said, “I know a fitter anthem for this sermon,” speaking only of our duty of following the saints, and I know not what. “Cooke should have sung, ‘Come, follow, follow me.’” I After sermon up into the gallery, and then to Sir G. Carteret’s to dinner; where much company. Among others, Mr. Carteret and my Lady Jemimah, and here was also Mr. [John] Ashburnham [L&M suggest it was William. P.G.], the great man, who is a pleasant man, and that hath seen much of the world, and more of the Court. After dinner Sir G. Carteret and I to another room, and he tells me more and more of our want of money and in how ill condition we are likely to be soon in, and that he believes we shall not have a fleete at sea the next year. So do I believe; but he seems to speak it as a thing expected by the King and as if their matters were laid accordingly. Thence into the Court and there delivered copies of my report to my Lord Treasurer, to the Duke of York, Sir W. Coventry, and others, and attended there till the Council met, and then was called in, and I read my letter. My Lord Treasurer declared that the King had nothing to give till the Parliament did give him some money. So the King did of himself bid me to declare to all that would take our tallys for payment, that he should, soon as the Parliament’s money do come in, take back their tallys, and give them money: which I giving him occasion to repeat to me, it coming from him against the ‘gre’1 I perceive, of my Lord Treasurer, I was content therewith, and went out, and glad that I have got so much. Here staid till the Council rose, walking in the gallery. All the talke being of Scotland, where the highest report, I perceive, runs but upon three or four hundred in armes; but they believe that it will grow more, and do seem to apprehend it much, as if the King of France had a hand in it. My Lord Lauderdale do make nothing of it, it seems, and people do censure him for it, he from the beginning saying that there was nothing in it, whereas it do appear to be a pure rebellion; but no persons of quality being in it, all do hope that it cannot amount to much. Here I saw Mrs. Stewart this afternoon, methought the beautifullest creature that ever I saw in my life, more than ever I thought her so, often as I have seen her; and I begin to think do exceed my Lady Castlemayne, at least now. This being St. Catherine’s day, the Queene was at masse by seven o’clock this morning; and. Mr. Ashburnham do say that he never saw any one have so much zeale in his life as she hath: and, the question being asked by my Lady Carteret, much beyond the bigotry that ever the old Queen-mother had. I spoke with Mr. Maya who tells me that the design of building the City do go on apace, and by his description it will be mighty handsome, and to the satisfaction of the people; but I pray God it come not out too late. The Council up, after speaking with Sir W. Coventry a little, away home with Captain Cocke in his coach, discourse about the forming of his contract he made with us lately for hempe, and so home, where we parted, and I find my uncle Wight and Mrs. Wight and Woolly, who staid and supped, and mighty merry together, and then I to my chamber to even my journal, and then to bed. I will remember that Mr. Ashburnham to-day at dinner told how the rich fortune Mrs. Mallett reports of her servants; that my Lord Herbert would have had her; my Lord Hinchingbroke was indifferent to have her;2 my Lord John Butler might not have her; my Lord of Rochester would have forced her;3 and Sir ——— Popham, who nevertheless is likely to have her, would kiss her breach to have her.

Apparently a translation of the French ‘contre le gre’, and presumably an expression in common use. “Against the grain” is generally supposed to have its origin in the use of a plane against the grain of the wood. ↩

They had quarrelled (see August 26th). She, perhaps, was piqued at Lord Hinchingbroke’s refusal “to compass the thing without consent of friends” (see February 25th), whence her expression, “indifferent” to have her. It is worthy of remark that their children intermarried; Lord Hinchingbroke’s son married Lady Rochester’s daughter. — B. ↩

Of the lady thus sought after, whom Pepys calls “a beauty” as well as a fortune, and who shortly afterwards, about the 4th February, 1667, became the wife of the Earl of Rochester, then not twenty years old, no authentic portrait is known to exist. When Mr. Miller, of Albemarle Street, in 1811, proposed to publish an edition of the “Memoires de Grammont,” he sent an artist to Windsor to copy there the portraits which he could find of those who figure in that work. In the list given to him for this purpose was the name of Lady Rochester. Not finding amongst the “Beauties,” or elsewhere, any genuine portrait of her, but seeing that by Hamilton she is absurdly styled “une triste heritiere,” the, artist made a drawing from some unknown portrait at Windsor of a lady of a sorrowful countenance, and palmed it off upon the bookseller. In the edition of “Grammont” it is not actually called Lady Rochester, but “La Triste Heritiere.” A similar falsification had been practised in Edwards’s edition of 1793, but a different portrait had been copied. It is needless, almost, to remark how ill applied is Hamilton’s epithet. — B. ↩

She be on a pedestal "...would kiss her breach to have her...."not her breech..to make a break in her ties to the others.mostly likely 5. breach, n.1 physical break wall,2 nautical.3. fig. The breaking of a command, rule, engagement, duty, or of any legal or moral bond or obligation; violation, infraction: common in such phrases as breach of contract, covenant, faith, promise, trust.

b. spec. and techn., as breach of arrestment, illegal disposal of property which has been ‘attached’, or placed under the control of a law-court; breach of close, unlawful entry upon private ground, trespass; breach of (the) peace, an infringement or violation of the public peace by an affray, riot, or other disturbance; breach of pound, the action of breaking into a pound or similar enclosure without right or warrant; breach of prison, escape of a prisoner from confinement; breach of privilege, a violation of the rights of a privileged body; breach of promise, gen. as in prec. sense; spec. = breach of promise to marry.1590

7. A physically broken or ruptured condition of anything; a broken, fractured, damaged, or injured spot, place, or part; an injury. a. of the body. Obs.1398 ..b. A disrupted place, gap, or fissure, caused by the separation of continuous parts; a break.1530...1624 CAPT. SMITH Virginia v. 174 The salt water..entred at the large breaches of their poore wooden castle. 1653 MANTON Exp. James iii. 5 Small breaches in a sea-bank let in great inundations.

here was also Mr. [John] Ashburnham [L&M suggest it was William. P.G.], the great man, who is a pleasant man, and that hath seen much of the world, and more of the Court....

Here I saw Mrs. Stewart this afternoon, methought the beautifullest creature that ever I saw in my life...

How can I, that girl standing there,My attention fixOn Roman or on RussianOr on Spanish politics?Yet here's a travelled man that knowsWhat he talks about,And there's a politicianThat has read and thought,And maybe what they say is trueOf war and war's alarms,But O that I were young againAnd held her in my arms!W.B. Yeats

L.H.: Every thing I write except where quoted by experts is an opinion of the uninitiated and from the unschooled, enough to show there is always an opposite as proven by Descartes: X Y Z where any one to be a true zero, nothing exists as there will always be neuron to make it never zero?..Thus every thing in life has to be tested, never ass u me.History is always written by the winner, it does not mean it is correct, thus most that be written is up for checking.

Re 'language hat vs. CGS'. I'm with language hat on this one. Your (lh) interpretation was the same as mine, I didn't even have to pause: - one of life's immutabilities, for a very long time before 1666, and certainly since.

"the design of building the City do go on apace, and by his description it will be mighty handsome, and to the satisfaction of the people; but I pray God it come not out too late."

The government and city were anxious to lose more time; committees were hard at work, and on 19 November the work of clearing the rubble had been started. Hugh May (Controller of the King's Works) had been appointed early in October to the commission set up jointly by the Privy Council and the city to prepare a survey of the ground (there was no map or street-plan in existence) and to design regulations for the new streets and buildings. It is to these plans, and not to the famous schemes of Wren and others, that Pepys refers to as 'handsome'. When he speaks of the satisfaction of 'people', he means the property-owners and tenants. His fear of the rebuilding being too late was a generally felt fear that inhabitants would migrate or establish themselves in the suburbs rather than wait for new buildings. T.F. Reddaway, Rebuilding of London, pp. 40+, esp. 60-1 https://archive.org/details/RebuildingOfLodon (sic) (Per L&M note)